Federal incentives are driving investments in the electric-car industry worth more than $100 billion. Every state wants a piece of the action, and Tennessee is getting plenty. It’s a lynchpin of the new Battery Belt that stretches from Michigan to Georgia. More than $16 billion in EV capital has poured into the state since 2017. Last year, Ford Motor Co. broke ground on a giant new plant near Memphis that’s slated to open in 2025 and churn out half a million electric trucks per year.
But the drive to reboot manufacturing and claim national leadership in strategic technologies is about to crunch up against a shortfall in trained workers — and impose new demands on technical education all across America.
Category: Human Rights (Page 6 of 12)
U.S. Geological Survey researchers said it was the first nationwide study to test for PFAS, or per- and polyfluorinated substances.
Fortune »
Drinking water from nearly half of U.S. faucets likely contains “forever chemicals” that may cause cancer and other health problems, according to a government study released Wednesday.
The synthetic compounds known collectively as PFAS are contaminating drinking water to varying extents in large cities and small towns — and in private wells and public systems, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
Researchers described the study as the first nationwide effort to test for PFAS in tap water from private sources in addition to regulated ones. It builds on previous scientific findings that the chemicals are widespread, showing up in consumer products as diverse as nonstick pans, food packaging and water-resistant clothing and making their way into water supplies.
“Credible sources indicate that as of yesterday, 3,747 individuals have died at the hands of the military since they took power, and 23,747 have been arrested,” said the UN rights chief.
California and Canada must absolutely not give in to the tech giants’ tantrum. This is a bluff, and not a particularly convincing one. For the sake of the beleaguered news industries in both places (yes, including this media outlet), the Canadian and Californian governments must absolutely call it.
For assurance, we should look to Australia, where a like-minded bill went into law in 2021, even after Google and Facebook made the same exact threats. Facebook did initially restrict access to news, but the ploy lasted barely a week before it backfired wildly, and Facebook agreed to comply, albeit after extracting some concessions.
That bill has already restored tens of millions of dollars in revenue to Australia’s troubled newsrooms, and, while far from perfect, has transformed the media environment dramatically.
A coalition of parliamentarians from the main political groups called on European Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola to stop using Google’s advertising services over reports the money could be used to fuel Russia’s propaganda.
The user repairable Fairphone 4 has been a hit in Europe for the past two years.
It’s now available in the U.S. from Murena, starting at around US$630. No word yet when or if Murena will ship the Fairphone 4 to Canada, but their other models already do, so …
Fairphone is partnering with Murena, a company best known for de-Googling Android phones, to launch the US pilot of the Murena Fairphone 4 — a variant of the handset that runs on a privacy-oriented Android-based operating system: /e/OS.
Euronews »
“Projections indicate that if Spain does not cut severely the emissions that cause global warming, the country will become hotter, drier, more arid and flammable,” says Maria José Caballero, Unit Head of Rapid Response at Greenpeace Spain.
“It will experience more floods and high-intensity fires and the impacts of sea-level rise. The data in the report shows the urgency of cutting emissions and tackling the climate crisis by taking ambitious measures, to which all political parties must commit.”
BMJ »
Key findings include:
- Doctors reported a wide range of symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, muscular pain, nerve damage, joint pain, ongoing respiratory problems and many more.
- Around 60% of doctors told the BMA that post-acute Covid ill health has impacted on their ability to carry out day-to-day activities on a regular basis;
- Almost one in five respondents (18%) reported that they were now unable to work due to their post-acute Covid ill-health;
- Less than one in three (31%) doctors said they were working full-time, compared to more than half (57%) before the onset of their illness;
- Nearly half (48%) said they have experienced some form of loss of earnings as a result of post-acute Covid;
- 54% of respondents acquired Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, and 77% of these believed that they contracted Covid -19 in the workplace;
- A small minority of doctors had access to respiratory protective equipment (RPE) around the time that they contracted Covid-19, with only 11% having access to an FFP2 respirator and 16% an FFP3 respirator;
- More than 65% of doctors responding said their post-acute Covid symptoms had not been investigated thoroughly and effectively by an NHS long Covid clinic or centre. And almost half of doctors reported not even being referred to an NHS long Covid clinic at all.
AP »
Five people were killed and two were wounded in the attack.
Ten murdered, 38 wounded, in three mass shootings ahead in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Fort Worth ahead of the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
NPR | BBC | BBC | Axios | The Guardian | The White House | UPI | CBS |
BBC »
Eighty-five years after Adolf Hitler ordered the destruction of Munich’s main synagogue, construction workers have found rubble from the building in a nearby river.
They uncovered columns from the synagogue and a stone tablet showing some of the Ten Commandments.
AP »
The planet’s temperature spiked on Tuesday to its hottest day in at least 44 years and likely much longer, and Wednesday could become the third straight day Earth unofficially marks a record-breaking high, the latest in a series of climate-change extremes that alarm but don’t surprise scientists.
The globe’s average temperature reached 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a common tool based on satellite data and computer simulations and used by climate scientists for a glimpse of the world’s condition. On Monday, the average temperature was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (17.01 degrees Celsius), breaking a record that lasted only 24 hours.
~~~
For two straight days, the global average temperature spiked into uncharted territory. After scientists talked about Monday’s dramatic heat, Tuesday (July 4th, 2023) temperatures soared 0.17 C hotter, which is a huge temperature jump in terms of global averages and records.
National Observer » Unofficial record for hottest days in human record keeping smashed for two days running
AP | Washington Post | NBC | PBS | The Guardian
FT »
While security cameras are commonplace in American cities, self-driving cars represent a new level of access for law enforcement — and a new method for encroachment on privacy, advocates say. Crisscrossing the city on their routes, self-driving cars capture a wider swath of footage. And it’s easier for law enforcement to turn to one company with a large repository of videos and a dedicated response team than to reach out to all the businesses in a neighborhood with security systems.
“We’ve known for a long time that they are essentially surveillance cameras on wheels,” said Chris Gilliard, a fellow at the Social Science Research Council. “We’re supposed to be able to go about our business in our day-to-day lives without being surveilled unless we are suspected of a crime, and each little bit of this technology strips away that ability.”
The Global Expression Report from UK-based free speech NGO Article 19 found that just 13% of the world’s population lived in countries classified as “open” in 2022, down from 22% at the turn of the 21st century.
However, Higgs has gone further than his Conservative counterparts in the region. In doing so, he has burned many bridges.
His relationship with the health-care sector is fraught. Emergency rooms have overflowed at times with residents dying in waiting rooms.
When it was reported a woman was unable to get access to a rape kit, Higgs blamed the nurses for “showing a lack of compassion.” He has also limited abortion access within the province.
Higgs has an equally contentious relationship with Indigenous Peoples. In 2021, New Brunswick directed government employees to halt territorial acknowledgements because the province is involved in a series of legal actions and land claims initiated by First Nations.
The province also tore up tax-sharing agreements with the Wolastoqey Nation, which Higgs argued were “unfair.”
Thank you sir. RIP.
NY Times »
“We were at the head of the landing,” he said. “The British let us go a few meters in front. For us it was the liberation of France, the return into the family.”
The Spec » Why would we hitch our grid to a climate-destructive fuel that traps us in an endless cycle of price volatility determined by factors outside our control?
Toronto Star » Ontario is planning to vastly expand its current gas-fired power plants and is set to build new ones
Hello everyone, and happy Canada Day.